MOVIE REVIEW : Bogdanovich’s ‘Noises’ Is a Bit Off

Michael Frayn’s celebrated play “Noises Off” is a farcical whirligig that manages to draw on everything from Oscar Wilde to English music-hall burlesque. First staged in 1982, its lickety-split play-within-a-play structure is a pitfall for movie adapters. Director Peter Bogdanovich and screenwriter Marty Kaplan, while not exactly falling into the pit, hang onto the sides by their fingernails.

In their defense, there’s probably nothing more difficult to accomplish in the movies than expertly timed farce. What works like clockwork in the theater can seem impossibly stage-bound on screen. “Noises Off” (citywide) is a particularly difficult challenge because the play is so inextricably joined to theatrical tradition. The filmmakers have added a framing device and an uplifting ending but they’ve kept the bulk of the show intact. And yet everything seems subtly, and often not so subtly, off.

The play opens with a touring company dress-rehearsing a knockabout British farce called “Nothing On.” The exasperated director (Michael Caine) spends much of the rehearsal in a state of spluttery disbelief. Everything that can go wrong does--props are misplaced, cues missed, lines lost, trousers dropped. The cast isn’t inept exactly, just terminally distraught.

And it’s quite a cast. There’s Carol Burnett, Denholm Elliott, John Ritter, Marilu Henner, Christopher Reeve, Nicollette Sheridan, Julie Hagerty and Mark Linn-Baker. We’re conscious that these performers are sending up their own profession, and having a good time at it. They don’t play down to us; they understand that for these actors, their predicament is deadly serious.

But the farce, which extends to a backstage version of the opening act, doesn’t really accelerate in this movie version (rated PG-13). Bogdanovich has already demonstrated in movies such as “At Long Last Love” and “Nickelodeon” a penchant for scenes of frenetic, outsized theatricality, and, although he’s better at it this time around, it’s still not his strongest suit. The farce, which should build and spin, becomes wearying and almost nightmarish. There’s little modulation and nuance; it’s as if everybody forgot to take a breath.

In Frayn’s play, the cast was entirely British, and the tour moved inexorably into the hinterlands. In the movie, though the cast members speak the play with British accents, they are, with the exception of Caine, Elliott and Sheridan, Americans, and their tour culminates on Broadway. Frayn’s conception is shaken by both the Americanization of the play’s particulars and the touring company’s upward arc.

What you’re left with is a lot of bustle and jabber, and occasional sparks from the cast. Caine has some fine comic moments of high exasperation, there’s great wit in the way Burnett arches her eyebrows and, as a besotted trouper, Denholm Elliott’s puttery calm is like a balm amid the delirium. It’s a delirium that finally seems more appropriate to the sitcom than to the stage.

‘Noises Off’ Carol Burnett: Dotty Otley Michael Caine: Lloyd Fellowes Denholm Elliott: Selfdon Mowbray John Ritter: Garry Lejeune

A Touchstone Pictures & Amblin Entertainment presentation. Director Peter Bogdanovich. Producer Frank Marshall. Executive producers Kathleen Kennedy, Bogdanovich. Screenplay Marty Kaplan. Cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt. Film editor Lisa Day. Costume designer Betsy Cox. Music Phil Marshall. Art director Daniel E. Maltese. Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.